East Timor

Following the involvement of the US and Australia that led to the Coup in Indonesia in 1965 and the subsequent ethnic cleansing of up to 2 million peasants and workers in Indonesia, one looked at what other invasions in the region were instigated by the US with the full knowledge and co-operation of the Australian Government. East Timor and West Papua immediately spring to mind. The following is a collection of articles.

The East Timor conflict started in 1975, when Indonesia occupied the province by brutal force and implemented a repression policy against the pro-independence movement. According to human rights groups, up to 200.000 people died during the invasion and subsequent fighting and famine in East Timor.

Indonesia also took control on Dutch New Guinea in 1963, incorporating it into de Indonesian state as Irian Jaya. Papua New Guinea was granted self-government in 1973 and full independence was achieved in 1975. Anyway, after Indonesias takeover of Irian Jaya, many West Papuans organised a guerrilla resistance movement (Organisasi Papua Merdeka or OPM) which fought Indonesian forces with limited success.

On the 22^nd of December 1975, the UN Security Council condemned the invasion of East Timor. Since then numerous resolutions supporting the East Timorese have been passed. Portugal, in 1988, managed to secure both European Commission and Parliament support. In 1989 the UN Human Rights sub-commission also expressed concern. But despite this, East Timor was effectively off the International agenda. Why ?

Most of the major western states tacitly supported the invasion. US President Gerald Ford was in Jakarta just prior to the invasion. The Australian Government was one of the first to recognise the Indonesian takeover as legitimate and its failure to pursue the death of five journalists working for two Australian news agencies in October 1975 may have encouraged the Indonesian government to proceed.

Sales of weapons and aid to Indonesia have been significant. Without the large supplies, including counter-insurgency aircraft bought in 1977, the Indonesian victory would have been far from inevitable. America supplied large amounts of military equipment. Both Britain and France supplied aircraft. Indonesian military personnel were trained in the west, particularly at home and in Australia by Australians.

It is unlikely that Indonesia would have succeeded in their takeover without this support

National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 62, December 6, 2001

The Indonesian invasion of East Timor in December 1975 set the stage for the long, bloody, and disastrous occupation of the territory that ended only after an international peacekeeping force was introduced in 1999.  President Bill Clinton cut off military aid to Indonesia in September 1999; reversing a longstanding policy of military cooperation, but questions persist about U.S. responsibility for the 1975 invasion; in particular, the degree to which Washington actually condoned or supported the bloody military offensive.  Most recently, journalist Christopher Hitchens raised questions about the role of former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in giving a green light to the invasion that has left perhaps 200,000 dead in the years since.  Two newly declassified documents from the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library, released to the National Security Archive, shed light on the Ford administrations relationship with President Suharto of Indonesia during 1975. Of special importance is the record of Ford and Kissinger meetings with Suharto in early December 1975.  The document shows that Suharto began the invasion knowing that he had the full approval of the White House.  Both of these documents had been released in heavily excised form some years ago, but with Suharto now out of power, and following the collapse of Indonesian control over East Timor, the situation has changed enough that both documents have been released in their entirety.

Other documents found among State Department records at the National Archives elucidate the inner workings of U.S. policy toward the Indonesian crisis during 1975 and 1976.  Besides confirming that Henry Kissinger and top advisers expected an eventual Indonesian takeover of East Timor, archival material shows that the Secretary of State fully understood that the invasion of East Timor involved the "illegal" use of U.S. supplied military equipment because it was not used in self-defence as required by law.

Although Indonesia was a major site of U.S. energy and raw materials investment, an important petroleum exporter, strategically located near vital shipping lanes, and a significant recipient of U.S. military assistance, the country, much less the East Timor question, barely figures into Henry Kissingers memoirs of the Nixon and Ford administrations.  Gerald Fords memoir briefly discusses the December 1975 visit to Jakarta but does not mention the discussion of East Timor with Suharto.  Indeed, as important as the bilateral relationship was, Jakartas brutal suppression of the independence movement in East Timor was a development that neither Ford nor Kissinger wanted people to remember about their time in power.  That the two decided on a course of action of dubious legality and that resulted in the slaughter of thousands of Timorese may well have also discouraged further reflection, at least in public.  No doubt the omissions from the Ford and Kissinger memoirs also reflect the low priority that East Timor had during the Ford administration.  For senior officials, the fate of a post-colonial East Timor paled in comparison to the strategic relationship with the anti-communist Suharto regime, especially in the wake of the communist victory in Vietnam, when Ford and Kissinger wanted to strengthen relations with anti-communists and check left-wing movements in the region.  But it is not simply a matter of omission; on several occasions Kissinger has explicitly denied that he ever had substantive discussions of East Timor with Suharto, much less having consented to Indonesian plans.  The new evidence contradicts Kissingers statements. Indonesian plans for the invasion of East Timor were indeed discussed with Suharto, and Ford and Kissinger gave them the green light.  As Kissinger advised Suharto on the eve of the invasion: "it is important that whatever you do succeeds quickly but that it would be better if it were done after we left to return to the United States."

Although these new documents shed important light on U.S. policy toward the East Timor question in 1975, much more needs to be learned about U.S. policymaking during 1975 and 1976.  Unfortunately, most of the relevant sources are classified.  The large collection of Kissinger-Scowcroft office files at the Ford Library remains unavailable, as are the records of the State Department’s Indonesia desk and the Bureau of East Asian Affairs for the 1970s.  The State Departments recent acquisition of Henry Kissingers telephone conversation transcripts might include important material, although they will probably reflect the relatively low priority that the policymakers gave to the East Timor question.

The leftist military revolt that overthrew Portugals authoritarian regime in April 1974 encouraged nationalist movements in the Portuguese colony of East Timor calling for gradual independence from Lisbon; a position also initially favored by the new Portuguese government.  One of these groups, the Timorese Democratic Union (UTD), had greater support among Timorese elites and senior Portuguese colonial administrators, while the Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor (Fretilin), with its left-leaning, social democratic program, had the support of younger Timorese and lower-level colonial officials.  In January 1975 the two groups formed an uneasy coalition.  Increasingly, Fretilin enjoyed the greatest public support and led the push for rapid independence.

Early signals from the Indonesian government indicated that it was prepared to support East Timorese independence, but Jakarta soon became interested in turning the region into the country’s twenty-seventh province.  Fears that an independent East Timor could be used as a base by unfriendly governments or spur other secessionist movements in Indonesia had convinced hardliners in the military to press for annexation of the territory.  In February 1975 the Indonesian military conducted a mock invasion of East Timor in South Sumatra.  Military hardliners also backed the pro-integration Timorese Popular Democratic Association (Apodeti) with financial assistance and launched a propaganda campaign against the pro-independence groups.  Apodeti, however, never had the popular support enjoyed by Fretilin or UDT.

The new regime in Lisbon was preoccupied with its own internal political controversies and could do little to ensure a steady transition toward independence.  During 1974 and 1975 Indonesian authorities hoped that the Portuguese would acquiesce in Jakarta’s plans to acquire East Timor.  At first the Portuguese seemed responsive, but by mid-1975 it had become evident that Lisbon supported self-determination for the people of East Timor.  In July 1975 Lisbon rebuffed Jakarta with the issuance of Constitutional Law 7/75, setting forth a timetable for home-rule, including the election of a popular assembly that would determine East Timor’s future, with Portuguese sovereignty ending no later than October 1978.

Events in East Timor, however, did not proceed in accordance with the Lisbon schedule.  The delicate UDT-Fretilin alliance had fallen apart in May, in part due to a propaganda campaign launched by the Indonesian government to inflame UTD concerns about Fretilin’s alleged communist tendencies.  UDTs fears were bolstered in June when Fretilin refused to attend an all-party conference on decolonization hosted by Portuguese officials on Macao due to the presence of Apodeti representatives.  To Fretilin the issue of independence was not up for discussion, least of all with Jakarta.  The extent of Fretilins popularity; and thus popular sentiment for independence from Indonesia, became evident in July when the party won 55 percent of the vote in local elections. Convinced by Indonesian intelligence that Fretilin was planning a coup, UDT staged its own in August 1975 in the Timorese capital Dili in an effort to drive out Fretilin supporters.  A Fretilin counterattack pushed UDT forces out of the city, however, and by September Fretilin controlled nearly all of East Timor, the Portuguese administrators having fled to the island of Atauro.  Despite having gained de facto control of the territory, Fretilin ended its call for immediate independence and now supported a plan similar to the gradual independence program proposed in June by the Portuguese.

The Indonesian government did not seize the opportunity to move troops into Dili on the premise of restoring order.  Suharto was still concerned about the reaction from the West and needed more time to get the UDT and other anti-Fretilin groups to support integration.  The UDT, now refugees on the Indonesian side of Timor and in need of food and shelter, had no choice but to sign a pro-integration petition drawn up by Indonesia.  Meanwhile, in October Indonesian special forces began to infiltrate secretly into East Timor in an effort to provoke clashes that would provide the pretext for a full-scale invasion.  When these incursions, including the murder by Indonesian forces of five journalists employed by Australian TV, failed to elicit any noticeable reaction from the West, Indonesia stepped-up its attacks across the border.

While Indonesian airborne troops, outfitted with American equipment, prepared to take Dili, Fretilin petitioned the United Nations to call for the withdrawal of the invading forces.  Four days later, on November 28, Fretilin declared East Timors independence, apparently in the belief that a sovereign state would have greater success appealing to the UN, but also thinking that Timorese soldiers would be more likely to fight for an independent state.  Indonesia countered the next day with a "declaration of integration" signed by Apodeti and UDT representatives and coordinated by Indonesias military intelligence service.  The invasion, originally scheduled for early December, was apparently delayed by the visit of Ford and Kissinger to Jakarta on December 6.

Operation Komodo, a general invasion of East Timor, commenced the next day.  In the following weeks a series of United Nations resolutions, supported by the U.S., called for the withdrawal of the Indonesian troops.  An estimated 20,000 Indonesian troops were deployed to the region by the end of the month.  While casualty estimates vary, anywhere from 60,000-100,000 Timorese were probably killed in the first year after the violence began in 1975.  In 1979 the U.S. Agency for International Development estimated that 300,000 East Timorese, nearly half the population, had been uprooted and moved into camps controlled by Indonesian armed forces.  By 1980 the occupation had left more than 100,000 dead from military action, starvation or disease, with some estimates running as high as 230,000.

This document records a conversation between Suharto and Ford at Camp David on July 5, 1975, five months before the invasion of East Timor.  Speaking only a few months after the collapse of the Thieu regime in South Vietnam, the two presidents shared a tour d’horizon of East Asian political issues, U.S. military assistance to Indonesia, international investment, and Portuguese decolonization.  Fearing greater political and ideological ferment in the region following the Communist victory in Vietnam, Suharto saw his ideological concoction "Pancasila" (possibly misspelled "Pantechistita" in the document) as useful, no doubt because its emphasis on consensus excluded any oppositional political activity.  Not taking "consensus" for granted, Suharto wanted U.S. help in building up his military machine to increase its mobility for dealing with insurgent elements, noting that, "Especially at this moment, intelligence and territorial operations are very important."  Ford proposed setting up a joint commission to scrutinize Suhartos military request but wanted Kissinger to settle the details.

Suharto brought up the question of Portuguese decolonization in East Timor proclaiming his support for "self-determination" but also dismissing independence as unviable: "So the only way is to integrate [East Timor] into Indonesia."  Without mentioning Fretilin by name, Suharto misleadingly characterized it as "almost Communist" and criticized the group for boycotting the decolonization meeting in Macao.  Suharto claimed that Indonesia did not want to interfere with East Timors self-determination but implied that it might have to because "those who want independence are those who are Communist-influenced."

While Lisbon still had legal sovereignty over East Timor, apparently neither Ford nor Suharto discussed the implications for Indonesian policy.  Although Washington had worked closely with the Salazar dictatorship that ruled Portugal for decades, it was now deeply suspicious of the new social democratic regime in Lisbon; with its exaggerated concerns about a Communist coup, the Ford administration considered the possibility of expelling Portugal from NATO and supporting an independence movement in the Azores (where the U.S. had important military facilities).   Thus, from the Ford and Kissinger perspective in 1975, Portuguals role in the region was of little interest and did not pose an important obstacle to Indonesian action.  That some left-leaning Portuguese officers had contacts with Fretilin undoubtedly made the White House even less inclined to concern itself with the Portuguese response to Indonesian action in East Timor.

Apparently encouraged by his meeting with President Ford, Suharto returned from Washington on July 8 and made his first public statement suggesting that an independent East Timor was not viable.  Only days later, UDT leaders launched their coup with the hope that they could suppress Fretilin.  During an August 12 discussion of the coup, Henry Kissinger and his close advisers were not altogether sure what was happening, but did not disagree with Assistant Secretary Philip Habibs statement that the Indonesians would not let a "communist-dominated group," i.e., Fretilin, take over.  Kissinger, in particular, assumed that an Indonesian takeover would take place "sooner or later."  Believing that Australia, a key regional ally, would feel "impelled" to support self-determination for the Timorese, Kissinger and his advisers wanted to avoid controversy over the issue.  They quickly agreed that the State Department should make no comment on the coup or related events.

A few days later, the Australian ambassador in Jakarta relayed a statement by U.S. ambassador John Newsom that summarized Washingtons approach but alluded to a problem that Kissinger and his advisers had not specifically discussed on August 12.  The message noted Newsom’s August 16 comment that if Indonesia were to invade East Timor, it [should] do so "effectively, quickly, and not use our equipment."  The U.S. ambassador recognized that there was a congressional prohibition on Indonesias use of military gear financed by U.S. aid for anything but defensive operations.  Kissinger would come to understand the problem, if he did not already, but as document four suggests, he was not willing to let it tie Jakartas hands.

This Kissinger memorandum, prepared for President Ford some two weeks before the two were to visit to Jakarta, indicates that the administrations larger strategic interests in Indonesia made it unlikely that Washington would make a fuss over East Timor. The eventual fate of East Timor was evidently a relatively low priority for Kissinger and his staff-it was the twelfth and final item mentioned in the memo.  While Kissinger, in the memo, acknowledged that the Indonesians have been "maneuvering to absorb the colony" through negotiations with Portugal and "covert military operations in the colony itself," he apparently did not expect an overt invasion using U.S.-supplied military equipment.  Indeed, his memo and the briefing paper on "Indonesia and Portuguese Timor" both indicate that to do so would violate U.S. law, suggesting that this consideration had induced "restraint" on the part of Jakarta.  Moreover, and in contrast to Habibs view that Fretelin was "Communist-dominated," the author of the briefing paper more accurately characterized the Front as "vaguely left-wing."

On the eve of Indonesias full-scale invasion of East Timor, President Ford and Secretary Kissinger stopped in Jakarta en route from China where they had just met with Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping.  During his meeting with Suharto, Ford emphasized Americas continuing commitment to Asian affairs despite the "severe setback of Vietnam."  Discussion then turned to the problem of Communist influence in the Non-Aligned Movement and the insurgency movements in Thailand and Malaysia.  Ford told Suharto that he would be "enthusiastic" about building an M.16 plant in Indonesia to provide small arms to help Southeast Asian governments counter regional insurgency movements.  Kissinger also approved of the proposed arrangement "because of its indication of wider cooperation."

On 4 or 5 December, while still in Beijing, Kissinger received a cable from the State Department suggesting that the Indonesians had "plans" to invade East Timor.  Thus, Ford or Kissinger could not have been too surprised when, in the middle of a discussion of guerrilla movements in Thailand and Malaysia, Suharto suddenly brought up East Timor.  Suharto noted that while Indonesia "has no territorial ambitions," Fretilin has not cooperated with negotiations and has "declared its independence unilaterally."  The current situation, he said, "will prolong the suffering of the refugees and increase instability in the area."  Suharto then assured the Americans that "the four other parties" favor integration, with the apparent implication that a mere majority among the "parties" to the conflict, absent a popular referendum, alone constituted an act of self-determination.  "We want your understanding," Suharto continued, "if we deem it necessary to take rapid or drastic action."

Ford and Kissinger took great pains to assure Suharto that they would not oppose the invasion.  Ford was unambiguous: "We will understand and will not press you on the issue.  We understand the problem and the intentions you have."  Kissinger did indeed stress that "the use of US-made arms could create problems," but then added that, "It depends on how we construe it; whether it is in self defense or is a foreign operation."  Thus, Kissingers concern was not about whether U.S. arms would be used offensively-and hence illegally-but whether the act would actually be interpreted as such-a process he clearly intended to manipulate.  In any case, Kissinger added: "It is important that whatever you do succeeds quickly."

Indeed, timing and damage control were very important to the Americans, as Kissinger told Suharto: "We would be able to influence the reaction in America if whatever happens happens after we return. . .  If you have made plans, we will do our best to keep everyone quiet until the President returns home."  Kissinger also asked Suharto if he anticipated a "long guerilla war," apparently aware that a quick military success would be easier to spin than a long campaign.  Suharto acknowledged that there "will probably be a small guerilla war" but he was cagey enough not to predict its duration.  Nevertheless, his military colleagues were optimistic; as one of the architects of Indonesian policy, General Ali Murtopo explained to a U.S. scholar some months before the invasion, "the whole business will be settled in three weeks."

With the U.S. position on the East Timor "business" settled, Suharto turned to economic problems, especially petroleum investments.  With the recent bankruptcy of the state oil company, the regime needed more revenue and Suharto wanted to get it from the oil companies that invested in Indonesia.  Noting that the oil companies were sharing larger shares of their profits with Middle Eastern states than they were with Indonesia, Suharto told Ford and Kissinger that he wanted to negotiate an "understanding" with them.  Both Americans were sympathetic and said that he would have their support.  Kissinger, however, noted carefully that whatever Suharto did he should "not create a climate that discourages investment." The possibility that the East Timor affair could prove to be a disaster for Indonesia and someday impair the "climate for investment" never seems to have occurred to either Kissinger or Ford.

Associated Press: January 25, 2006

Washington; US-supplied aircraft played a crucial role in enabling the Indonesian military to crush East Timorese resistance to its invasion and occupation of the territory in the late 1970s, according to a report by an East Timor commission.

The Indonesian offensives "resulted in the severe suffering and hardship to tens of thousands of civilians sheltering in the interior at the time," the report said.

Indonesia, fearing a leftist takeover in East Timor following the end of Portuguese colonial rule in 1975, invaded the territory in late 1976 and subsequently annexed it.

According to the report, the United States felt compelled to support Indonesias military government. The support included that of the Carter administration (1977-1981), which had made protection of human rights a centerpiece of its foreign policy, the report noted.

Efforts to reach Richard Holbrooke, a former UN ambassador who served as the Carter administrations top official for East Asia, were unsuccessful.

Successive US administrations all consistently stressed "the overriding importance of the relationship with Indonesia and the supposed irreversibility of the Indonesian takeover," the report said.

In 1977, reports began to emerge from East Timor about the Indonesian use of US-supplied OV-10 Bronco aircraft amid claims that they may have been used for spraying chemical defoliants.

The US Embassy in Jakarta responded to questions from the US Congress on the subject by saying it had received "no reports that Indonesians have used chemical sprays in areas" aligned with the resistance movement.

Indonesias use of OV-10s in East Timor "has thus far been limited to machine guns, rockets, and perhaps bombs," said the recently declassified cable to the US State Department.

The report was prepared by East Timors Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation (CAVR). Copies were distributed by the Washington-based National Security Archive, a research institute on international affairs. In preparing the report, East Timorese officials received assistance from a number of foreign governments, including the United States, and international non-govenrmental organizations.

According to the study, US officials generally declined to acknowledge the culpability of the Indonesian military for the large number of fatalities in East Timor. "Instead," the report said, "they maintained that the deaths were due to drought, an argument that the commission finds to have been without merit."

The extent of the implicit U.S. support for the Indonesian invasion has emerged in the release of a steady stream of documents in recent years. But the 70 documents released by the U.S. National Security Archive, at George Washington University, provide new details of how far Washington went to avoid any conflict with Jakarta over the takeover.

Among the greatest concerns of U.S. officials was to avoid a controversy that would prompt a congressional ban on weapons sales to Indonesia. According to a U.S. National Security Council memo in early 1976, Newsom had suggested contingency planning that would help Indonesia find "friendly foreign sources of compatible equipment" in the event that U.S. military aid was cut off.

The British policy was clear in a note to diplomatic missions from the Foreign Office offering "guidance" on the issue of Portuguese Timor on Dec. 5, 1975. It suggested that the primary aim of Britain was to "keep out of the controversy surrounding Timor as far as possible."

Thirty years after Indonesia invaded East Timor, newly declassified diplomatic cables and memos have provided further evidence of the complicity of the United States, Britain and Australia in events that led to a brutal 24 year occupation of the former Portuguese colony.

The diplomatic files, obtained and released by an independent Washington-based research institute this week, show how all three governments lied about their knowledge of Indonesian plans in East Timor and secretly abetted the invasion in December 1975.

 A top secret, "eyes only" memorandum for Henry Kissinger, then the U.S. secretary of state, in March 1975 outlined the pragmatic calculation behind the acceptance of an Indonesian invasion, almost nine months before it occurred. The United States had "considerable interests in Indonesia and none in Timor," the memo said, noting the views of the U.S. ambassador at the time, David Newsom.

Kissingers attitude was to consistently turn a blind eye to the preparations for the invasion, the documents show. After Indonesia began covert military operations inside East Timor in October 1975, Kissinger told his staff: "I am assuming you are really going to keep your mouth shut on this subject?"

But the Indonesian invasion of East Timor two months later was never the quick or clean exercise Washington and its allies had hoped. The Indonesian military bloodily suppressed dissent in the country and an intractable struggle against the remnants of the pro-independence faction Fretilin was a permanent thorn in the side of the Indonesian diplomatic relationship with the West.

The question of the Australia Governments role, has haunted our foreign policy ever since, and the papers released by Alexander Downer show how Australian policies and actions evolved on East Timor from 1974 to 1976. They are a record of how Australia became so enmeshed in Jakartas thinking that Canberra could say nothing about its intimate knowledge of the secret invasion of East Timor in 1975.

And they show how Australia had three days advance notice of the time and place of the attack which killed five Australian journalists at Balibo.

From Canberra, Graeme Dobell reports on the 885 page book called "Australia and the Indonesian Incorporation of Portuguese Timor, 1974 to 1976."

GRAEME DOBELL: "Here is the detailed official script of how Australia marched into a foreign policy trauma that lasted 25 years. The documents show an Australia so close to Jakartas thinking that it is unable to protest even privately on the eve of the secret invasion of Timor. One key moment is in September 1974 when the prime minister, Gough Whitlam, meets Indonesias president Suharto in Jog, Jakarta. The official record of the leaders conversation shows Mr Whitlams priorities, first that East Timor should become part of Indonesia, second, that this should happen in accordance with the expressed wishes of the Timorese."

But the actual import of that message to Jakarta was put more bluntly a few weeks later in a minute sent to the head of the Australian Foreign Affairs Department. Gough Whitlam says that the act of Timorese self-determination is to be little more than a gesture to Australian public opinion. Here is the passage directly quoting the words of Mr Whitlam.

"I am in favour of incorporation, but obeisance has to be made to self-determination. I want it incorporated, but I do not want this done in a way which will create argument in Australia, which would make people more critical of Indonesia."

And Jakarta understood what it had been told by the prime minister. In October 1974, one of Suhartos top generals, Ali Matopo [phonetic], tells an Australian diplomat that until Mr Whitlams visit the month before, Jakarta had been undecided about Timor. But he says Mr Whitlams support for the idea of incorporation into Indonesia had helped them crystallise their own thinking and they were now firmly convinced.

Later that month the Australia Ambassador in Jakarta reports the view that Indonesian policy has hardened, and the determination to take over East Timor has developed an almost irresistible momentum. Senior Indonesian officials start talking to Australian diplomats in Jakarta about taking military action, and in the months that follow, Australian diplomats are given all the details. By September 1975, the embassy is cabling Canberra with the details of Suhartos approval of a significant escalation.

A force of 3800 Indonesian soldiers are to be sent into East Timor, and by October 13, 1975 the embassy reports that the invasion will start on the night of October 15. The main thrust would be through Balibo, and Indonesia wanted to take the capital, Dili, by mid-November. The invasion does go as secretly promised, and the five Australian journalists in Balibo are killed on the morning of October 16, three days after Canberra was given the details.

In the first place, in 1965-66 the Australian political, military and intelligence establishment gave full support to General Suhartos bloody coup in Indonesia and backed his dictatorship while political ethnic cleansing resulted in the deaths of up to 2 million Indonesians. Then in 1974-75 the Labor government of Gough Whitlam gave Suharto unmistakable signals; and Whitlams personal assurances at two summits, that his forces could invade East Timor with impunity. At least 200,000 Timorese people died as a result, through massacres and hunger. Timors oil, first explored in the late 1960s, became a critical factor.

Whitlams ambassador to Indonesia, Richard Woolcott summed up Canberras attitude in a diplomatic cable, advising the Labor government that a Timor Gap Treaty "could be more readily negotiated with Indonesia than with Portugal or independent Portuguese Timor". These aspirations came to fruition in the 1989 treaty. In return for Indonesias signature, Australia became the only Western country to extend formal or de jure recognition to East Timors incorporation as Indonesias 27th province. Just two years later, while feeling obliged to express regret at the loss of life, the Hawke government endorsed the Suharto regime blatant cover-up of the 1991 Dili massacre, in which more than 200 unarmed protestors were gunned down by Indonesian troops.

Brought to office in 1996, the Howard government maintained the alliance with the Indonesian regime as long as it possibly could. Throughout most of 1999 it steadfastly defended the Indonesian military claims that it would ensure the safety of the Timorese people in the lead-up to the autonomy ballot of August 30. After the ballot produced an overwhelming vote for secession, the Howard government quickly reversed its position and campaigned for an Australian-led multinational force to occupy the territory. Cynically, after 24 years, Howard argued that the bloodbath in East Timor had reached such proportions that Australia had to immediately intervene.

"For 24 years the Australian government supported Indonesias oppressive rule in East Timor, even giving de jure recognition of Indonesian sovereignty in the face of over ten United Nations sanctions calling for Indonesias withdrawal. Former Foreign Minister, and Indonesian apologist, Gareth Evans said that Indonesias occupation of East Timor was "irreversible". Yet by 1999, as tens of thousands ordinary Australians poured onto the streets in an overwhelming show of solidarity for the East Timorese, Australia led an international peacekeeping force in East Timor. Australian forces then went on to direct post-conflict peace building following the Indonesian military led devastation of East Timor."

In 1999, there was some support for East Timorese in Australia but hardly on a scale likely to cause a shift in Government policy towards East Timor, so what caused the Australian Government to do a "back flip" over the policy towards that country? The "30 year secrecy act" in Australia (Jokingly called the "30 year conspiracy act") will hide full details from the Australian public until 2026, however actions by Australia in robbing East Timor over the "Timor Gap Treaty" at a time when the world has reached "Peak Oil" should offer some idea of the underlying reason for such an aggressive Australian response to the forming of a UN peace keeping force to oust the Indonesians.

(As late as June 2000, the Australian Media was not grasping the real reason for Howards support of a US proposal for ousting Indonesia from East Timor; The huge and rich natural gas and oil reserves in the Timor Gap.)

The Australian 28th. June 2000

"A Nations Sense of Betrayal Lingers"

By ROBERT GARRAN, Defence writer

The crowds have gone from outside the Australian embassy in Jakarta, but the anger against Australia among the Indonesian political class over its stand on East Timor is still palpable.

Among the many consequences from the East Timor crisis, this resentment is the most significant for Australia and future security.

The Howard Government is the first Australian administration since the Indonesian confrontation with Malaysia in the early 1960s to actively oppose Indonesia on an important foreign policy issue. The price has been that Indonesians now feel a deep sense of betrayal over Australia' role in East Timor.

After almost a quarter of a century of support for the Indonesian occupation of the territory, Indonesians seem to have little understanding of the reasons for Australia to change heart, or the depth of popular support for the change. We are two countries still struggling to understand each other.

The reasons for Australias intense interest in East Timor are well-known: East Timor had for 25 years been the lightning rod for public discontent with Australian foreign policy. Remembering the strong support the Timorese gave Australian commandos during the 1942 fight against the Japanese, many Australians never accepted the Whitlam governments abandonment of East Timor to Indonesia in 1975; combined with the Governments reluctance to come clean over the deaths of five Australian-based journalists at Balibo in October 1975, these concerns grew.

But, in spite of the importance of Australias bilateral relationship with Indonesia, John Howard was prepared first to write to then president B.J. Habibie to propose an act of self-determination for the East Timorese and, nine months later, after the ballot, to lead the international peacekeeping force deployed when Indonesian-sponsored militia destroyed most of the territory infrastructure.

Acting on sentiments that were noble to Australians, but virtually incomprehensible to Indonesians, Australias role in East Timor seriously fractured relations with its most important neighbour.

The key task for both countries will be to rebuild the relationship but that will be more, not less, difficult as Indonesia becomes more democratic, and Indonesians more able to air sometimes intensely nationalistic views on their place in the world and their neighbours.

Another task for Australian policy will be to manage the relationship with East Timor as well as possible, especially, as The Australians Peter Alford argued in these pages yesterday, to encourage a rapprochement with Indonesia. Membership of the Association of South-East Asian Nations would be an ideal form of security guarantee for East Timor, avoiding the need for the new nation to lean one way or another.

There were some broader trends at work in East Timor that will continue to be important factors in Australias security equation.

They are the big changes in the political dynamic, aspects of the globalisation phenomenon; the importance of international boundaries and the growing influence of global forces on world politics and individual nations.

In Australias region, these changes are manifested in what security analyst Paul Dibb has called the "arc of instability" to Australias north and east. The list of potential conflicts is daunting: secessionist pressures in Aceh, Ambon and West Papua; civil strife in Papua New Guinea and Pacific island states including Fiji and Solomon Islands.

But these issues were not in the past and are not now the kinds of direct threats to Australian security that pose a fundamental danger to Australia.

They do, however, require subtle and constructive policies in the region.

The argument for intervention in the Pacific relies more on the benefits and influence achieved from being a good regional citizen: that Australia has a moral responsibility as the biggest power in the region to encourage and support democracy and economic development.

25 October 2000

An impasse in negotiations between Australia and the UN over the future of the immense oil and natural gas deposits beneath the Timor Sea has thrown a new spotlight on Australias claim to have sent troops to East Timor last year for humanitarian reasons.

In three days of formal talks in the East Timor capital of Dili this month, the Australian government refused to address a call by the United Nations Transitional Authority in East Timor (UNTAET) for the realignment of the undersea boundary between Australia and Timor.

According to the current border, fixed by the 1989 Timor Gap Treaty between Australia and Indonesia, Australia controls the overwhelming portion of the oil and gas reserves. Under that treaty, never recognised in international law, the Suharto regime handed Canberra a generous slice of the offshore exploration fields in return for Australias support for, and formal recognition of, the 1975-76 Indonesian annexation of East Timor.

The Treaty created three zones where the revenues were shared between Jakarta and Canberra. But if the boundary were redrawn along the median point between Australia and Timor, the principle generally applied in international law, all the proven oil and gas fields, currently valued at more than $US20 billion, would lie in East Timorese territory.

The Dili meeting was the first round of negotiations between Australia and UNTAET over replacing the 1989 Treaty. Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer refused to comment on the substance of the talks or the Howard governments desired split-up of the seabed boundary after East Timor is granted nominal independence next year.

But a UNTAET cabinet member, Peter Galbraith, a former US ambassador to Croatia and son of the economist J.K. Galbraith, declared that East Timor would have a "sovereign right" to a continental shelf that extended to the mid-point. "East Timor has clear entitlements under international law and I doubt that the East Timorese are likely to accept something less than they are entitled to," he declared. "To be honest, the United Nations could not reconcile, and I personally could not reconcile accepting something the East Timorese could not accept."

According to some media reports, in the next round of negotiations the Howard government may offer UNTAET a 70 percent share of the royalties, up from the current 50 percent, but only if UNTAET drops the territorial claim. Even this offer would fall well short of the 90 percent figure that has previously been demanded by the Timorese leadership of Xanana Gusmao and Jose Ramos-Horta.

While refusing to disclose its hand publicly, the Howard government has met the UNTAET position with thinly veiled threats to reduce aid to East Timor. Just before the Dili meeting, Downer bluntly dismissed Galbraiths talk of taking the dispute to the International Court of Justice as a "throw-way line," implying that the UN was simply bluffing. Galbraiths comment would not be permitted to "overshadow negotiations," Downer declared.

Canberra is anxious to avoid being taken to the international court, which in 1995 indicated support for a Portuguese challenge to the validity of the 1989 treaty. The UN and other international agencies refused to recognise Indonesian sovereignty over East Timor, continuing to regard Portugal, the former colonial ruler, as the legitimate authority.

As the Dili talks commenced on October 10, Downer directly linked their outcome to the level of Australian aid. "The extent to which East Timor itself is able to get the royalties, or a share of the royalties, the size of its share, plays into the overall size of the Australian aid program in East Timor and so on," he said. "So there are a lot of issues tied up together here."

Downers colleague, Science and Resources Minister Nick Minchin, warned that a border dispute in the international court would frighten away billions of dollars of investment. "It is critical that the new treaty does maintain investor confidence in the Timor Gap," he told the Australian parliament. "Without that there will be no financial or employment benefits for either the East Timorese people or us."

Minchin announced two puny aid measures for East Timor, funded by Timor Gap fees that Canberra extracts from oil companies. Costing just $700,000 a year for two years, the programs will examine East Timorese job prospects in the oil and gas industry and provide training and advice to "facilitate East Timorese understanding, administration and policy development on matters relating to the terms of the Timor Gap Treaty and Timor Gap resource management issues". Minchin did not say this offer was conditional on accepting Australian sovereignty over the disputed territory, but the implication was clear enough.

Another round of negotiations is due before the end of November, with companies such as Phillips pressing for an early resolution of the differences.

Canberra is rooted in definite commercial as well as strategic calculations. With parts of the central Timor Sea still to be explored, the existing discoveries contain some 15 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, about twice the resources of Australias North-West Shelf offshore fields. Just to the east, the Evans Shoal discovery has another 8 trillion cubic feet.

The government revenues to be divided between Canberra and Dili from the main Bayu-Undan field, which lies in a zone, called the "Joint Petroleum Development Area" or "JPDA".

The Timor Sea Treaty establishes a temporary joint petroleum revenue sharing area (The JPDA) in the Timor Sea between Timor-Leste and Australia. The Timor-Leste Government believes the Treaty is a satisfactory interim arrangement that provides certainty and continuity for investors, while generating significant revenue during the crucial early years of national reconstruction.

Timor-Leste Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri and Australian Prime Minister John Howard signed the Treaty on 20 May 2002, and it was ratified by the Timor-Leste Parliament in December 2002 by a vote of 65 to 13. Following ratification by the Australian Government in March 2003, the Treaty entered into force on 2 April 2003.

An Australian-Japanese-US-British consortium headed by US oil giant Phillips Petroleum last year committed itself to the $1.4 billion first stage of the project, due to come on line in 2004. Another stage, costing $1 billion to transport the gas to the northern Australian city of Darwin, depends on the outcome of the talks.

Lao Hamutuk Bulletin.

Once again, greedy oil companies and their allies in the Australian government are trying to take advantage of East Timor. And, once again, they are wrong. The latest controversy concerns an announcement on July 26 by Phillips Petroleum, a U.S.-based oil company, and its fellow investors in the Timor Gap. In a letter to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, Phillips expressed its dismay that East Timorese leaders will not guarantee them the same tax rates they received from the Indonesian occupation authorities. For this reason, Phillips and its partners are delaying indefinitely the construction of a $500 million pipeline that would carry natural gas from the Bayu-Undan field to Darwin.

A spokesperson for Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer criticized the East Timorese position for reportedly trying to extract a further $500 million from oil companies involved in the Timor Gap. While acknowledging East Timors right to decide its own tax policies, he claimed that East Timors position contradicts a signed promise by East Timorese leaders Xanana Gusmão, José Ramos Horta and Mari Alkatiri in October 1999. Reportedly, this agreement stated that taxation rates would be no higher than those under the Indonesian authorities. "We think it is important that [East Timor] holds up its original commitment," stated a Downer spokesperson.

Rightfully, UN administrator Sergio Vieira de Mello publicly expressed strong disapproval of Phillips Petroleum and various Australian government officials. And lead negotiators for the recently-signed memorandum of understanding on the new Timor Gap Treaty, Mari Alkatiri and Peter Galbraith, voiced their support for de Mellos position, with Minister Alkatiri characterizing the concerns of the oil companies and Canberra as "misdirected."

Phillips and Canberra are attempting to hold East Timor hostage to supposed "promises" made in the immediate aftermath of the 1999 campaign of widespread murder and destruction by the Indonesian military and its militia proxies.

In doing so, they are trying to maintain a fiscal regime very favorable to the interests of the oil companies, a position gained because of Indonesias desire to gain international acceptance of its illegal annexation of East Timor. In this regard, Phillips and Canberra are trying to institutionalize the result of a criminal act, one in which they were partners.

As former Political Affairs Minister, Peter Galbraith argued, "In October 1999, while Dili was still in smoldering ruins, East Timorese leaders indicated to the companies that they welcomed their continued investment in the Timor Sea. At the time, the leaders were not aware of the unfair investment incentives, which lay hidden in company contracts." For this reason, asserted Galbraith, "It is ludicrous now to assert that East Timor is obliged to give the companies the benefit of the same unfair fiscal incentives that were offered to them by the Indonesians and Australians, which were offered to attract companies to invest in a territory which belonged neither to Indonesia nor Australia."

There is too much money involved in the Timor Gap for Phillips Petroleum and its allies to not stay involved. The question is: under what conditions? As the past conduct of Phillips and its allies in aiding Indonesias subjugation of East Timor demonstrates, they are not defending any principle; they are simply trying to ensure high profits. The East Timorese leadership is correct to insist upon a set of tax policies that is significantly more favorable to East Timor.

The Australian government is already obtaining $6 million a year in royalties from the much smaller 140,000 barrels per day Laminaria project, which lies just inside Australian waters according to the current boundary. In addition, the North Australian Gas Venture of Woodside Petroleum and Royal Dutch Shell has vast gas reserves that partially lie in the contested zone.

Redrawing the boundary with East Timor would also call into question the entire underwater border agreed with Indonesia in 1972, which is drawn extremely close to Timor and other islands in the Indonesian archipelago. Anxious to retain Australian diplomatic support, the Suharto regime accepted Australian sovereignty over nearly all of the north-western continental shelf. Portugal, however, refused to sign a similar deal for East Timor, leaving a "gap" in the Indonesian-Australia border that was then "filled" by the 1989 Treaty.

These concerns have been reflected within the other political parties that bear responsibility for the Timor intervention, notably the Labor Party and the Australian Democrats. Labors foreign affairs spokesman Laurie Brereton has called for agreement on an equidistant boundary, while his Australian Democrats counterpart, Vicki Bourne, has advocated allocating 90 percent of Timor Gap revenue to East Timor.

These parties were among the most vocal in demanding the deployment of troops last year. By promoting the alleged humane objectives of the Australian-led operation, they helped to overcome public distrust, now seen as being well founded, in the Howard government motives.

Throughout all the twists and turns of Australian policy, from justifying the 1975-99 military subjugation of the East Timor people at a cost of some 200,000 lives to suddenly claiming to be preoccupied with rescuing them from Indonesian-backed militias; successive Australian governments, both Liberal and Labor, have had a common objective, to secure a controlling stake in the Timor Sea oil and gas reserves.

The Age, March 11th., 2003

Our Government has looked after our interests well. Shame about our little neighbour, writes Tim Colebatch.

"They fooled me. Perhaps they fooled you, too. These days the spin doctors are everywhere, and they know how to pull the wool over our eyes.

A year before East Timor became independent, Australia announced what seemed a noble gesture. It would cut its own share of oil and gas royalties from the joint petroleum development area (JPDA) in the Timor Sea from 50 per cent to 10 per cent. The new nation could take 90 per cent.

This means East Timor will gain 90 per cent of the royalties from the big Bayu-Undan gasfield, due to begin production in 2004. Project partners put the value of its exports over the next 20 years at $30 billion, of which $6 billion would be revenue for East Timor. At face value, Australia had unilaterally given away $2.5 billion to $3 billion in long-term revenue to its young neighbour.

But that was only half the deal. What gradually became clear was that Australia also insisted that East Timor virtually sign away its claim on two other proven oil and gas deposits in the Timor Sea, together double the size of Bayu-Undan. The big one is the massive Greater Sunrise gasfield, 450 kilometres north-west of Darwin, the little one is the Laminara Corallina oilfield further west. Both of them are far closer to East Timor than to Australia. Both are claimed by East Timor as offshore territory.

Yet Australia made it part of the Timor Sea Treaty that in the seas outside the JDPA where both governments claim sovereignty, including 80 per cent of Greater Sunrise and all of Laminara Corallina, 100 per cent of royalties would flow to Australia. The treaty added a proviso that this was "without prejudice" to the permanent seabed boundaries the two countries would negotiate in future.

In theory, these could shift the boundary in East Timors favour. In theory, Australia might then agree to give East Timor a bigger share of royalties. But as we shall see, that is unlikely.

When the East Timorese then kept raising the unfairness of this deal, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer moved to lock them into it. Australia refused to ratify the Timor Sea Treaty until East Timor signed a "unitisation agreement" in which 82 per cent of royalties from Greater Sunrise would flow to Australia, and just 18 per cent to East Timor.

A transcript of negotiations in Dili last November 27, leaked to the website crikey.com.au, quotes East Timorese Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri as complaining that Australia was insisting on boundaries it had negotiated years ago with Indonesia, and offering his country "scrapings off a plate".

Downer became vehement in reply. "We are not going to negotiate the Timor Sea Treaty;  understand that," he told Alkatiri. "It doesn't matter what your Western advisers say... There will be no new joint development area for Greater Sunrise... We are very tough. We will not care if you give information to the media. Let me give you a tutorial in politics, not a chance."

And so it continued until last week, when as the Australian Senate was finally allowed to debate and ratify the Timor Sea Treaty, the East Timor Government simultaneously signed a unitisation agreement giving it just 18 per cent of royalties from Greater Sunrise.

In a short video produced by Sydney-based film-maker H. T. Lee, "Timor Gap Oil and Gas: Don't Rob Their Future", oil and gas consultant Geoff McKee estimates that in fact, Australia stands to take 60 per cent of the royalties from known energy resources in areas claimed by both countries, while East Timor gets just 40 per cent.

Sources familiar with the negotiations say these numbers ignore big differences in the status of the projects. Bayu-Undan is now on the starting block, with contracts signed to export all its gas to Japan, ultimately after processing into liquefied natural gas (LNG) in Darwin.

Its money will start flowing to East Timor next year, and will help the new nation through the critical early years when it must catch up in education, health care, infrastructure and jobs.

By contrast, Greater Sunrise is now in limbo, a deposit in deeper seas, with no guaranteed markets, and relying on an untried technology of conversion to LNG on floating platforms. In a secret memorandum signed last week, Australia promised East Timor a further $US10 million ($A16.2 million) a year if and when such offshore production begins, a concession worth up to $A500 million over its lifetime.

It is also unclear where the boundary should be. Australias definition follows its continental shelf, which extends under shallow water almost three-quarters of the way across the Timor Sea. East Timor defines it as a line through the middle of the Timor Sea. There are legal opinions behind both views. What is clear is that this issue will never be settled by an independent judge. Last year Australia suddenly excluded both the International Court of Justice and the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea from arbitrating any dispute on its maritime boundaries.

East Timor may negotiate for changes, but we will decide, and there will be no appeal. We have looked after our interests well. It's a pity about East Timorese interests."

This story was found at: http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/03/10/1047144918616.html

Since the East Timorese independence referendum in 1999, the Australian government has received approximately $1 billion dollars in taxes on oil taken from the Laminaria Corallina field, which is fully situated in East Timorese territory.

During the same period, East Timor has received absolutely nothing from this oil field. One billion dollars is four times the amount of "aid" that has been "given" to East Timor through AusAID since 1999.

In Melbourne, the Timor Sea Justice Campaign has been established and other groups are screening the documentary "Timor Gap Oil and Gas: Don't Rob Their Future" to raise awareness about this rip-off. Clearly there is a massive challenge to reawaken and mobilise the Australian peoples solidarity with East Timor against the Australian governments robbery.

It should concern us all that the campaign to give East TImor its resources back is stronger in the United States than in Australia. The US East Timor Action Network, ETAN, issued a petition signed by scores of organisations worldwide calling on the Australian government to change its position. Even members of the US Congress have written to Howard on this issue.

The complete moral bankruptcy of so-called  "mainstream" politics is illustrated by the deafening silence in the Australian media and parliament about what amounts to an Australian occupation of East Timorese territory and the direct theft of billions of dollars worth of oil.

During the 24 years between Suhartos invasion of East Timor in 1975 and Indonesian president Habibies agreement to withdraw Indonesian troops in September 1999, the Australian political establishment relentlessly and mercilessly pursued a policy of support for the Jakarta annexation and military occupation of East Timor.

More than 200,000 East Timorese were killed, or died from hunger, during Jakartas war of occupation. Most of these deaths occurred during periods when the Australian government was sending military equipment and training to Jakarta.

From 1975, the motivation behind Australian policy was clearly that it would be easier to get access to the oil in the Timor Sea from the dictator Suharto than from a new independent and nationalist East Timorese government, which may have opted for Chinese, Soviet or European oil partners. Now, thirty years on, the Australian government is doing all it can to keep what it was given by Suharto.

According to international law, as set out in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) the international sea boundary between countries situated close to each other is the median line (the half-way point). But the Australian government insists that an old border, the 1972 Australia-Indonesia seabed boundary agreed with the Suharto government, be the basis of current negotiations between Canberra and Dili on exploration of oil in the Timor Gap.

To protect itself from legal challenge, since March 2002 the Australian government has refused to acknowledge the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice or any dispute-settlement mechanisms under UNCLOS.

There are four major oil or gas fields in East Timorese territorial waters: the Laminaria Corallina oil field, the Elang Kakatua oil field, the Bayu-Undan oil and gas field and the Greater Sunrise gas field. The Australian government, resting on the agreement with the deposed Jakarta dictator, claims 100% sovereignty over Laminara Corallina and sovereignty over 80% of the territory of the huge Greater Sunrise.

Canberras one concession to the new East Timorese government was that it agreed to accept 10% of taxes, rather than the 50% Suharto had agreed to, on takings from the Elang Kakatua and Bayu-Udan fields (the smaller of the yet unexploited fields). This was set out in the 2002 Timor Sea Treaty signed with the East Timorese government at the time of formal independence.

With unrest and killings again in May 2006, which led to an invasion by Australian led peace keeping forces, the future of East Timor is uncertain. Prime Minister Alkatiri stood down and was replaced in an election by Prime Minister Jose Ramos Horta. The following article is therefore interesting and shows the continueing dirty politics in East Timor:

2006 AAP Home >World >Breaking News, August 30, 2006 - 9:46PM

Former East Timor Prime Minister, Mari Alkatiri says unnamed westerners approached army commanders to organise a coup against him. He also alleges Australian Prime Minister John Howard had pushed for him to step down. Mr Alkatiri did resign earlier this year amid allegations he had a hand in organising death squads to eliminate political opponents. But in an interview with the SBS program Dateline, Mr Alkatiri claimed "foreign nationals" tried to organise a coup against him because he was "too independent" and threatened Australian interests in the oil and gas fields of the Timor Sea.

"I was informed by the commanders of the (East Timorese) army of the situation," Mr Alkatiri told SBS. "They (the army chiefs) were approached by some Timorese and some foreign nationals but I was fully aware and confident in the command of the army that I didn't think it was an issue that could worry me and it was nothing." Mr Alkatiri said it was not clear whether the foreigners were Australian or American. "Even the commanders were not clear on this. If they were Australian or American ... between these two," he said. "But I still have no clear information from the command if they were Australian or American, but surely they were English speaking." Asked if he had any evidence that Australia was involved in the coup attempt, he said he did not, but strongly believed Mr Howard wanted him gone.

"Evidence? No. But the only prime minister in the world that was really `advising me' - quote, unquote - to step down was the prime minister of Australia during these, say, these difficult days," Mr Alkatiri said.

He defended the way he ran the country, saying he fought hard for full control of the Timorese oil and gas fields.

"What I was doing in my term was to defend the interests of my people in having the resources to develop this country independently, not to be dependent," he said. "I was fully aware we have our right on the Timor Sea and we have to defend it, not because I am anti-Australian, I like very much Australia as a country, as a nation, as a people."

The Bayu-Undan field began producing gas liquids (condensate and liquid petroleum gas (LPG) in February 2004. This phase involves extracting the gas, separating the liquids and then reinjecting the gas back into the reservoir where it will remain until the second phase commences. A floating processing and storage facility, "Liberdade" (Stern view), which was built in South Korea and delivered to the Timor Sea in October 2003, is permanently anchored at Bayu-Undan during this phase.

"Liberdade" is the largest floating LPG storage facility ever built. It is the size of three football fields and can store about 230,000 cubic metres of condensate and LPG; the equivalent of 90 Olympic swimming pools. "Liberdade" processes the condensate and LPG and stores them before being loaded onto tankers for export. The products will be sold to various buyers on the open market.

 Indonesia - Competing World Views; The Indonesian Confrontation - a US view(1963)

 History of Borneo, Malaya and the Indonesia-Malaysia Confrontation

Indonesia in 1965 & 1966 , a British Viewpoint.

Sukano, the Coup of 1965

West Papua